Urania, who had followed Thalia back into the room, stayed just long enough to raid the box of macarons before retreating to her bedroom with a handful of colourful confections and a final grateful nod in Thalia's direction.
Thalia only distantly registered it, her eyes on Melpomene, her weak attempt at a smile doing nothing at all to hide her worry.
Why was a broad question. Melpomene might have asking why hot chocolate? or she might have been asking why are you here? or – more likely, to be honest – a general existential why. Why bother, why keep going. To be or not to be. Thalia wanted to steer well away from the latter train of thought, so she decided to opt for the former interpretation instead.
"Well," she said, "one: hot chocolate is delicious. That speaks for itself. Two: you're my sister and I love you so obviously I was gonna spring for the quality shit. Three: I wanted one too, because it's still cold as balls outside and LA's made me soft." She was aware she was talking a lot, probably too much, definitely too much, but Melpomene was huddled and silent and she couldn't stop the words bubbling up, she couldn't do silence. "Four – have I done four? Four: these babies are so thick they basically count as a meal, so if you don't feel like eating, I mean, you should eat, obviously, but if you don't..."